Mammoth video board part of Kyle Field revamp

The red brick that will be prominent on Kyle Field's new facade is already visible on the northeast corner. The shade is similar to that on Blue Bell Park, A&M's 2-year-old baseball stadium.

The red brick that will be prominent on Kyle Field's new facade is...

Texas A&M already had announced its stadium's planned capacity of 102,500, making it the largest in Texas and the Southeastern Conference. On Tuesday, A&M chancellor John Sharp also declared a new video board, at 47 feet by 163 feet, will be the largest in college athletics and nearly twice the size of the old one.

"It's another intimidating feature of the redevelopment of Kyle Field," Sharp said during a stadium construction update.

Opponents have long considered the 12th Man - A&M's student body that stands the entire game and yells in unison - as Kyle Field's most intimidating feature. But Craig Kaufman, senior associate with architectural firm Populous, said two new canopies on the stadium's east and west sides will amplify that intimidation.

"These canopies will not only offer shade to patrons but also reflect the crowd noise back down into the stands and onto the field," Kaufman said. "That will have a great impact."

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Kaufman added that the Seattle Seahawks' home venue, CenturyLink Field, offers a similar setup with canopies, and its fans were recently recorded as loudest ever for crowd noise.

"And I know for sure (Aggies) are as loud as they are," Kaufman said.

The Kyle renovation, which began in earnest on Nov. 9 following A&M's final 2013 home game, is "on schedule," said Greg McClure, project director for Manhattan-Vaughn Construction. Capacity will be 106,511 for 2014 (prior to the addition of suites on the west side) before dropping down to the final number of 102,500 in 2015. Red brick, the prominent feature of Kyle's new façade, has begun rising on the northeast corner of the stadium.

Sharp also noted a couple of additions that will make plenty of Aggies grin: The new Kyle will have twice as many women's restrooms, he said, and cell phone service should be much improved starting this season.

Despite the construction, A&M intends to play all of its home games at Kyle this coming season, and McClure vows the project will be complete in time for the 2015 season. Sharp said he believes him.

"The lights are on all night long - it's going on 24 hours a day," Sharp said of Manhattan-Vaughn's urgency regarding what's been dubbed the most extensive college football stadium redevelopment in history.

Sharp added that 12 seats on the second deck of the 50-yard line will be barricaded and always remain empty to honor the 12 Aggies who died in the catastrophic Aggie Bonfire collapse of November 1999.

Tragedy, too, struck the Kyle project in early December when worker Angel Garcia, 28, of Lindamood Demolition fell four stories to his death.